Tuesday, December 10, 2013

More Growth for Lakewood Ranch

Lakewood Ranch is perfectly lovely as it exists right now, and attracts a lot of attention from home buyers because of the neatly manicured neighborhoods and new infrastructure such as schools and hospitals. In fact, Lakewood Ranch is becoming more of a bedroom community for St. Petersburg commuters because of the benefits compared to living in Pinellas County.

But I just can't help thinking you can have too much of a good thing. I encounter buyers who don't want to pay extra property taxes in the form of CDD fees (read about them here). Developers are more than likely going to have to charge CDD fees to build new communities even further east in Manatee County.

If you Google map Lakewood Ranch and St. Pete, and Lakewood Ranch and Siesta Key beaches, the driving time is almost identical. Proximity to the beach, at least for the buyers I've been working with, still remains a key ingredient in finding the right property. And if you're sitting in increasing traffic congestion trying to get to the beach, that kind of defeats the purpose of moving to FL in the first place.

I caution home buyers interested in Lakewood Ranch to consider how a flood of new homes on the market will affect existing home values, if they buy now and need to sell in the next 5 to 7 years.